Less accidents, more tantrums

There was only one accident today with Jeremy and potty training.  We were down in the basement packing, and he wet his underwear.  He didn't even notice that he peed his pants.  I'm not sure why this surprises me since he is a boy after all.  ;-)  After that he managed to urine AND poop in the potty chair every time.  I even took him outside for a longer stretch today and he stayed dry.  I'm so proud of my little guy. 

He did, however, have more melt downs today.  I'm not sure if it's because he was just tired today or because we are both coming down with a cold, but either way it was temper-tantrum city for a good portion of the day.  I'm thinking he's probably coming down with a cold since he wanted to snuggle more than usual, which is always a nice.  So I guess the day went in a full circle in regards to Jeremy's moods.

I also messaged my aunt today regarding a comment she had made last night on the phone.  I knew that either I was misunderstanding her or she was misunderstanding me, so I wanted to clear the air.  She made a remark about hoping that I get pregnant with my next child when I wanted to, which I, of course, took it in a completely negative way.  I thought she thought Jeremy was an accident and that the next child would be planned.  Ha!  No! that is not at all what she meant.  She was trying to be encouraging and loving.  Whoops!  My aunt is not a vindictive person, so I don't know why I would think that she would be expressing something negative towards me.

I'm just being sensitive, because I'm so stressed out with this move.  My realtor has been a nightmare through this whole experience.  She has been very condescending towards me, scolding me at one point even - John overheard her so I know I'm not being crazy.  She gave the buyer's attorney the wrong contact information for my attorney, which meant paperwork was not getting filed on time.  This in turn made my buyers nervous and threatening to pull out of the contact because nothing was being said regarding the buyer's request on things that needed to be fixed at the house.  She liked to drop bad news and then turn it around so that I wasn't allowed to get upset with her.  She put all of the blame on the paperwork not getting done on my attorney, and then when I told her that she needed to own up to her mistakes and apologize to my lawyer she said that she wouldn't.  I will never recommend her to anyone.  She has been a b*tch throughout this whole process, and the only good thing she has done was list our house so it would sell two weeks later after being listed.

I'm also looking forward to not being alone almost every night, too.  It'll be nice to be under one roof with my husband - wow! I never thought I would say that expression (more on that later ... possibly).  I'm anxious to have Jeremy's separation anxiety lessen since he'll be seeing his father on a daily basis.  It's also going to be a nice change of pace to have John's commute only be 30 minutes, as opposed to the 90 minutes it took him just to get him when he was working in Chicago.  There are honestly a lot of things that I'm looking forward to with this move.  John and I are looking at this as a fresh start for our marriage, and so far, that's exactly how it's been playing out. 

Oh poop!

Jeremy is doing well with his potty training. Last night he pooped in his potty, which felt like a huge accomplishment. This morning, however, he decided the living room carpet would be a good place for him to "pop a squat". I had to explain to him that we poop in the toilet, not on mommy's carpet.  What made it worse was that he was scooting his butt on the carpet afterwards, so he was leaving poop marks all over the place. Let me just say this happened while I was picking up the poop off of the. Adept before my dogs decided Jeremy's poop would be a tasty treat.  Needless to say, I had a pretty shitty morning and had a lot of crap to clean up. Haha.

Thankfully the next poop he had today was in the toilet again. I'm hoping the conversation I had with him about where the poop goes will stick. Ha! I know, super funny. Tomorrow is a new day and I'm sure some type of feces will be on my floor.

I tried putting underwear on him. He started to pee in it on the floor and stopped and told me he needed to go potty.  I was so proud of him, but he did spend the rest of the day without any pants on him, except to go for a walk around the block. I wonder when I will be able to put underwear on him and not have to worry about accidents. I'm sure it's a ways down the road, but at least we are on the way to getting some where. :-)

Potty Training

The Cars potty training chair has worked like a charm!  Jeremy has been running around all morning without a diaper and he has had no problems going to the bathroom like a big boy!  A couple of the times he has even sat down without letting me know and went to the bathroom, only afterwards informing me he should get a chocolate chip - this is what I'm using to reward his behavior.  Low and behold, there was urine in the potty.  :-)  I also decided to leave the potty chair in the kitchen since we spend the majority of our time in the kitchen/living room, which has probably helped with Jeremy voluntarily going to the bathroom like a big boy.

So today I went back to Wal-Mart and bought a cheaper potty chair that looks like a froggy and put it up in his room, with a puppy training pad under the toilet incase he either a.) urinates out of the toilet or b.) decides it would be fun to dump his urine out of the toilet and onto the floor.  Let's hope option B never happens - I can just hear all of you moms out there, who have already potty trained a child, laughing at me.  My thought process behind putting a potty training chair in Jeremy's room was in case he wanted to go to the bathroom during nap or bed time he could get up, go to the bathroom, and go back to sleep.  I have no idea if this is going to work, but there's really only one way to find out.

I know potty training Jeremy before we move might not be the smartest, most logical thing I'm doing right now, but he's interested at this moment in time.  I don't want to discourage him just because it doesn't fit into my timeline.  If he ends up potty trained before the big move, wonderful!  I'll make sure he wears Pull-Ups in the car ride and keep him in them for a couple of days after we've moved to WI, because I'm sure there will be accidents with the stress he may experiencing. If he doesn't end up potty trained before we move, that's fine too.  I don't want him to ever feel pressured either way.

Moving news update:  I contacted Meijer to see if they had any produce boxes available so I could snatch them up for packing.  The manager was very nice and informed me the best times to go in are between 8am-10am and see what boxes will be available.  So I know where I'm going to be at 8am tomorrow morning.  :-)

Today I'm going to tackle the alcohol glasses and the toys that Jeremy doesn't play with in the basement.  Hopefully I can donate more toys than I have to pack up. 

Bleeding encounter

John has been PCSed (permanent change of station) to Junction City, WI about a month ago, so he has been up North working during the week and traveling back on the weekends - when he doesn't have drill. Thankfully, our home sold quickly, so I have been attempting to pack up our home and take care of the animals and Jeremy at the same time.  I'm pretty much ready to pull out my hair right now. 

Firstly, I really don't want to leave my beautiful home.  I love it here.  I love my neighbors.  I love the location of where we are living.  We are close to civilization, but still in the middle of the corn field - which gives me the best of both worlds.  Secondly, I am so overwhelmed with everything that I am supposed to be doing that I don't want to be doing anything.  Thirdly, I'm feeling depressed knowing that I'm going to be leaving all of the people who I love and hold near and dear to my heart, which is not helping with the first two points.  :-(  And lastly, I actually miss John.  And it's hard hearing Jeremy missing John, espcially now that he is realizing that John is gone a lot and is having seperation anxiety. 

Thankfully, John has been really supportive and very understanding when I'm having my melt downs.  I know it's not fair to be breaking down to him, especially since it's hard on him to be up in WI by himself.  Plus, no one at his unit knows that Jeremy and I are not with him yet, so he really has no one to talk to about his loneliness.  I guess both of us are in the same boat, since I can't talk to people about how I'm really feeling about this move.  How I feel so alone in my home and completely depressed when I look at the empty rooms and boxes.  I'm so grateful that this experience is bonding my husband and I together, instead of completely tearing us apart.

I know that I'm not the first woman to go through this, nor will I be the last.  I'm just hoping some day I will be able to be around families who understand our lifestyle.  I just want to feel supported, instead of feeling like people are thinking that I'm trying to get sympathy out of them.

My saving grace is that Jeremy, our 2 1/2 year-old son, is with me.  Every day is an adventure with him.  Like today, I bought a Cars potty training toilet for him.  Going to the bathroom on the normal toilet is scary to him, so John and I are trying to get him to go to the bathroom in a potty training toilet.  After Jeremy woke up from his nap, I had him run around the house without a diaper to get him to go to the bathroom in his Cars potty.  Apparently his butt cracked itched, because next thing I know he has blood all over his hands and under his nails, and his poor butt crack is bleeding.  So training pants were put back on and I had to keep him from scratching the area more to keep it from getting worse.

Hopefully tomorrow his butt crack will be less itchy and Jeremy will be able to run around without a daiper on and go potty like a big boy.  Fingers crossed.